4 armed group members nabbed near Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Four members of an al-Qaeda-related group on Tuesday were arrested during a security operation near Kirkuk, according to an army official. “During a wide-scale search campaign in Dakamat al-Ulya village, Rashad district, four members of the so-called ‘Ansar al-Sunna Army’ were captured,” the commander of the fourth regiment in the Iraqi army, Staff Lt. Col. Shawan Ghareeb, told IraqiNews.com news agency. “Those arrested are wanted on murder and kidnap charges,” Ghareeb added. Jaish Ansar al-Sunna, or Army of the Followers of the Sunna is a militant group based in northern and central Iraq, and includes both Kurdish and Sunni Arab as well as foreign fighters. The group is thought to have links with other Islamic organizations operating in Iraq including, the formerly Abu Musab al-Zarqawi backed, Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (al-Qaeda in Iraq). Kirkuk, an oil-rich and mixed city of Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and Arabs, lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad. SS (P) 1